An old earth dam presently located in a heavily populated area of San Francisco Bay , was evaluated for its stability both under static and earthquake loading condition.  Shortly after construction was completed, a significant slide occurred in the lower portion of the embankment. But it did not threaten the functioning of the reservoir. Dam history over the years revealed that slide continued moving slowly downhill during rainy seasons. Various remedies to control slide were tried but did not work. The talk will include investigation to find the underlying cause of the slide, stability evaluation and the completion of remedial design by emptying the reservoir and reconstruction of the portion of the lower embankment.

A brief look at the importance of Observational Technique in the Geotechnical Engineering Practice will also be presented.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Singh is currently a Nicholson Family Endowed Chair Professor of Civil Engineering at Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, California.  After graduating with an M. Tech at IIT Delhi in 1966, he taught for a year at IIT Delhi and then moved to Canada and to U.S.A. and completed his PhD in 1979 from U.C. Berkeley.  He taught at Santa Clara University for 31 years of which 15 years as Department Chair.  Before joining Santa Clara, he worked 11 years in industry (Dames & Moore) as project engineer and manager on several geotechnical engineering projects.  For brief periods each year for 10 years he researched as visiting faculty at Cambridge University, UK.